Painting

Main Street Martinsburg is teaming up with organizers of Relay for Life to launch a "high heel" kickoff event for the annual American Cancer Society fundraiser this year. The first Paint the Town Purple weeklong awareness event from April 3 to 9 will be capped off with a purple, high-heel race on Queen Street with Relay for Life participants, officials announced recently. Martinsburg City Council earlier this month approved Main Street's plan to close the 100 block of North Queen Street for the race between noon and 2 p.m., Main Street Martinsburg executive director Randy Lewis said.

The 2010 census could be seen as a paint-by-numbers project. Washington County's canvas is full of new houses and townhouses that were built during the housing boom in the mid-2000s. But census figures released last week also indicate how some of those housing developments never got off the ground and some homes ended up in foreclosure, officials with county and municipal governments said. Smithsburg and Keedysville grew significantly, which would be obvious to anyone who's driven past new developments such as Whispering Hills in Smithsburg or Rockingham and Cannon Ridge in Keedysville.

The Barbara Ingram School for the Arts Foundation in Hagerstown Friday unveiled the works that will become hot-air balloon statues for its second round of public art. Take Flight II, the new project, will feature 25 to 30 hot-air balloon statues, painted by local artists and placed around town. The foundation's second public art project to raise money for the school, the effort continues to be centered around the concept of flight, said Pieter Bickford, co-chairman of Take Flight II.  In 2009, the foundation used a butterfly theme and raised about $100,000, he said.

Clyde H. Roberts, a well-known local artist and former supervisor of art for Washington County Public Schools, died Monday after he contracted an infection that quickly spread through his body. Cindy Downs said her 87-year-old father died at Reston (Va.) Hospital Center surrounded by his family. "He taught most of Washington County how to paint," Downs said of her father, who taught a painting class that was broadcast to students via closed-circuit television. "He was a great educator.

The water supply for the sprinkler system at an organ pipe company in the old M.P. Moller Pipe Organ factory had been turned off before a fire broke out in the city facility last Thursday, leading to the rapid spread of the blaze, Hagerstown City Fire Marshal Doug DeHaven said Wednesday. The fire, which his office has determined started in a paint booth, would have been better contained had the water not been turned off to the sprinklers, Dehaven said. "Most likely, it would have been out" by the time firefighters arrived, he said.

The final product in the nightcap of the Richard E. Doub Ladies Classic lost something in the translation. What started out as a girls basketball tournament turned into an art show during Williamsport's 40-36 loss to Northern (Calvert), despite a 14-point, 16-rebound performance by Stacey Christy. “This is all art in progress,” said Williamsport coach Chris Malott. “We had a real chance to win this game. Winning games is an art, but losing games is an art, too.” Art, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder.

At a recent holiday event at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, I chanced into a conversation with a young man from Clear Spring as we both stood in front of one of the museum's most beloved paintings: Norman Rockwell's "The Oculist. " The young man was astounded to discover such a national treasure in his hometown museum. He engaged me in animated conversation for 15 minutes as he recounted the many Norman Rockwell paintings he had seen and those he still wished to see. Washington County's Rockwell painting was created by an artist whose reputation has grown exponentially since the work was created in 1956.

A fallen leaf sits in rain water that has motor oil running through it in a parking lot in Hagerstown on Monday.

SMITHSBURG - Washington County Lutheran pastors put their faith into action Sept. 15 wielding paint brushes and rollers to help build a Habitat for Humanity house. Before noon, the pastors had a full coat of primer on the entire house. The work day was organized by The Rev. Ed Heim of St. John's Lutheran Church and is part of the Thrivent Builds program, which is a partnership between Habitat for Humanity, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, and the Lutheran Churches of Washington County.

In a ceremony Wednesday morning, the Washington County Retired School Administrators unveiled a portrait of Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Morgan that will hang in the lobby of the school system's central office in honor of Morgan's selection as the 2010 National Superintendent of the Year. "She has truly been a wonderful leader, so this is our small way of saying, 'Thank you, Dr. Morgan, for a wonderful job,'" said Bob Wantz, a member of the Washington County Retired School Administrators steering committee.